Low Price ooma Core VoIP Phone System with No Monthly Phone Service Bills

My dad, a retired 74 year old, was looking for a way to reduce his $65/mo phone bill. I looked at Vonage, but didn't see how he could save all that much. Then I saw OOMA and told him about it. He got very exited and bought before I even had time to ask questions. He then ordered up basic DSL at $20/month and connected the phone lines to the house properly ( usually a $200 charge, but my Dad used to be an electrician ).
He installed the OOMA to his new DSL modem and BANG was using it right away. Even with a 768/384 basic dsl he had astonishingly good call quality. He liked his new number and cancelled the old phone line, going all digital. That was a few months ago. He gets an occiasional echo, but overall it's perfectly fine and even clearer than his old phone line. So a 74 year old grandpa had no problem.

I then told a friend and she went out to Best Buy to get OOMA that same day and got the same results with her DSL. She had a little higher bandwidth than my Dad and she thought it worked great. Plugging her fax directly to the OOMA and using the SCOUT her for phone, she even managed to be able to send and recieve the occasional fax. She emailed over the form for the phone number port, but there was a bit of an error on her part. Nonetheless, ATT ported her number - getting the DSL back on was a hassle and a $200 re-install fee. For awhile she had no phone or DSL until they turned everything back on. However, it's all working fine now.

So, I decided I was dragging my feet and bought an OOMA too. Ordered from amazon it took a week to arrive. Now, I have cable internet. Which is a bit more complex. I also don't have a phone jack or a computer anywhere near my cable modem. I have everything wireless. So, I hooked up my OOMA per the instructions and it worked right away. However, call quality was terrible. it was very choppy. I played with the QoS settings all day and got no decent results. I called the cable company and they checked the signal - finding an issue which turned out to be a faulty modem. Got a new modem and it was crystal clear. THEN, I noticed at certain times of the day it would get choppy again. Since cable internet is shared bandwidth I realized that my signal was varying WAAY too much for a clear connection. So, I increased my bandwidth ( $10 more a month ). And MAN it was clearer and I never had a disconnect. Once in a while I get an echo, but that is maybe a few times a week out of several calls. So, if you have cable internet you may need to increase the bandwidth - case in point during the Oscars my internet came to a complete crawl and so did the OOMA. Now, I got my phone ported. I *had* to, there were no more numbers left in my area code. It's $40, but it's still cheaper than a $90/mo phone bill from ATT. After one month I got my phone ported from ATT - which for about 24 hrs I had no service on that number. The following day it worked like a champ. Internaitonal calls are less than half of what I was paying on a low-rate calling card before. I can basically call overseas for several hours for only $10!

NOTES:
If the power goes out or your little kid unplugs the power, turn on the modem, then the OOMA, then the router or computer. Do it slowly in series. If I don't my internet comes to a complete halt.

I guess I am one of the lucky ones, I've always been able to contact customer service within 5-10 minutes. USE the forums, they are super helpful.

If you increase bandwidth, change your QoS settings or the calls go wacky and the internet slows.Get more detail about ooma Core VoIP Phone System with No Monthly Phone Service Bills.